The present invention relates to exercise workstations and more specifically to a treadmill or other exercise device workstation that includes a treadmill or other exercise device, a work surface, a display device and other accessories that encourage movement and obtain exercise while attending to work activities.
All living beings constantly expend energy, either at rest or during physical activity. Dr. James Levine, a medical doctor in Rochester, Minn., has performed extensive research on the expenditure of a low amount of energy by a living being, referred to as Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT). The NEAT research has found that all individuals store energy in adipose tissues. For example, a lean individual may store two to three months of energy needs in the tissue while an obese person may carry twelve months of their energy needs in the tissue. According to the NEAT research, the cumulative impact of such an energy imbalance over months and years often results in obesity.
Human energy expenditure (EE) includes three principal components: (1) basal metabolic rate (BMR), (2) thermic effect of food (TEF), and (3) activity thermogenesis. BMR is energy expended when an individual is at complete rest in a post-absorptive state. BMR accounts for approximately 60 percent of total daily EE for indivuals with sedentary occupations. The NEAT research suggests that approximately 75 percent of the variability in BMR is predicted by lean body mass within and across species. TEF is an increase in EE associated with the digestion, absorption, and storage of food which accounts for approximately 10-15 percent of total daily EE.
Activity Thermogenesis has two constituents: exercise-related activity thermogenesis and Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT). Unfortunately, a great majority of individuals do not actively participate in exercise and health related activities so that thermogenesis is often negligible and therefore NEAT contributes substantially to the inter- and intra-personal variability in EE. To this end, if three-quarters of the variance of BMR is accounted for by variance in lean body mass and if TEF represents 10-15 percent of total EE, then the majority of the variance in total EE that occurs independent of body weight must be accounted for by NEAT.
NEAT is highly variable and can range from 15 percent of total daily EE in very sedentary individuals to greater than 50 percent in highly active persons. Studies suggest minor changes in physical activity throughout the day can increase daily EE by 20 percent. NEAT is impacted by environment, but is also biologically modulated.
The environmental cues impacting NEAT can be divided into occupational and non-occupational components. With respect to occupational components, individuals with highly active ambulatory jobs can have NEAT values of 1000 kcal/day more than sedentary individuals. In areas of nutritional need, this has implications for starvation-threatened individuals. In affluent countries, industrialization often converts high-NEAT jobs to lower-NEAT jobs which are associated with increased obesity rates. Non-occupation NEAT may include, but is not limited to, activities like dish washing, driving and riding in cars, use of remote controls, using lawnmowers, going through a drive-through at a restaurant, playing a video game, using elevators, using snow blowers, cutting the lawn, etc.
Dr. Levine's research suggests leisure-time sedentariness is a result of the availability and volitional use of pervasive mechanization. Dr. Levine's study found the energetic cost of non-work mechanization is estimated to be approximately 100-200 kcal/day which represents a caloric deficit that potentially could account for the entire obesity epidemic in the United States.
One experiment that suggests NEAT is biologically modulated involved overfeeding individuals where NEAT increased where individuals with the greatest NEAT gains from overfeeding gained the least fat.
Accordingly, one way to increase NEAT in occupational environments has been to construct exercise/workstation configurations that enable users to increase NEAT while simultaneously completing occupational activities. For instance, one solution has been to build treadmill/workstation configurations. While other exercise/workstation configurations are contemplated (e.g., a stair climber/workstation, a bike/workstation, etc.), in the interest of simplifying this explanation, concepts will be described here primarily in the context of exemplary treadmill/workstations.
Here, a typical treadmill includes, among other components, a tread assembly, a vertical support structure, an input/output assembly and hand rails. The tread assembly includes a belt mounted to a horizontal support structure, a motor for driving the belt and a controller for controlling the motor. The vertical support structure extends upward from a rear end of the tread assembly and the input/output assembly is mounted to the top end of the vertical support structure. The input/output assembly, as the label implies, includes components (i.e., buttons and displays (e.g., numerical or video type)) that enable a user to input control commands to the motor controller and to receive feedback regarding an exercise session (i.e., calories burnt, miles traveled, heart rate, time expired, time remaining, etc.). The hand rails include rails that extend generally horizontally from the input/output assembly along side edges of the tread assembly and toward the front end of the tread assembly. The hand rails can be grasped to increase stability during exercise.
Known treadmill/table configurations include either a freestanding table that straddles the front portion of a treadmill where the table forms a work surface that resides in front of a treadmill user or a mounted table top member that is secured to the treadmill hand rails to provide a table top surface. Here, a laptop computer or the like, phone and other devices and work tools (e.g., books, paper reports, etc.) can be placed on the work surface and employed to complete occupational activities (i.e., reading documents, answering e-mails, performing internet searches, etc.) while a user increases the user's NEAT. Exemplary known treadmill tables/trays include dedicated flat screen monitors (FSMs) mounted to support arms adjacent table top surfaces as well as dedicated keyboards, phones and other electronic devices.
While known treadmill/workstation configurations enable users to increase NEAT while working, unfortunately, known configurations have several shortcomings. First, known treadmill/workstation configurations do not have easily accessible control buttons (i.e., start, stop, speed increase, incline increase, etc.) and easily visible input/output assemblies. In this regard, most known treadmill/workstation configurations retrofit a table assembly to an existing treadmill configuration and the table top member resides above the input/output assembly and hand rails or between a configuration user and the input/output assembly and above the hand rails. Where a table top member resides in front of the input/output assembly, the assembly input components (e.g., buttons) and output components are often difficult to see while walking on the tread assembly and the input components are often difficult to reach as a user has to extend over the table top surface to access the input components. Here, difficulty in accessing/seeing the input/output assembly is exacerbated when a laptop or other computer components reside on the table top surface between the user and the input/output assembly. Similarly, where a table top member resides above the input/output assembly, access top and view of the input/output assembly is blocked or severely impeded making it difficult for a user to control the tread assembly and to ascertain the current status of NEAT activities.
Second, known treadmill/workstation configurations include table top members that impede access to the lateral hand rails which reduces user stability. Here, known treadmill/workstation configurations usually include table top members positioned at least in part above the hand rails which often completely blocks access to those rails. Where the top member does not completely block access to rails, the top member usually substantially blocks access to the rails so that only the ends of the rails are exposed which can be difficult to grasp.
Third, while treadmill/workstation users like to be able to periodically check the status of their activities by observing the output components of the input/output assembly, it has been recognized that changing output can be distracting to a treadmill/workstation user while the user is trying to complete work tasks. For instance, when a treadmill/workstation user is reading a document, changing digital readouts that reflect treadmill activities below a computer display screen can distract a station user and adversely affect completion of the tasks. In cases where a top surface resides between an input/output assembly and a user on the tread assembly so that the output components are observable while using the tread assembly, the changing output is distracting.
One solution to deal with blocked hand rails has been to provide a rail along the edge of the table top surface facing a tread assembly user. Unfortunately this solution results in the workstation key board being further away from the workstation user which can be ergonomically incorrect.
Fourth, while treadmill/workstation configurations are useful, these configurations often require dedicated workstation components that make it necessary for a user to purchase a completely different set of duplicate components to configure a more typical workstation for normal use. To this end, most treadmill/workstation users will only use a treadmill/workstation during a portion of a workday (e.g., for 1-2 hours) and therefore require some other more conventional workstation to support activities during other times of the day. In many cases, while users recognize advantages of a treadmill/workstation, because most of their work day will be spent at a conventional workstation, the users cannot justify the added costs associated with an additional treadmill/workstation and they forego the benefits associated therewith.
Fifth, in cases where a table assembly straddles a treadmill, often the table assembly is relatively narrow in depth and therefore is not very sturdy. In these cases, if a user grabs onto the table assembly it is believed that the table assembly and components supported thereby could be toppled which could damage the supported components.
Sixth, the table top surface of known treadmill/workstations is not optimally sized. To this end, some treadmill/workstation top members have top surfaces that are only large enough to support a laptop computer or the like and therefore are too small for facilitating many occupational activities. Other treadmill/workstation top members include large work surfaces to enable users to spread out materials thereon during tread assembly use. When a top surface is too large, users are tempted to spread out materials thereon at locations that require the user to reach over extended spaces to access the materials which can cause instability.
Seventh, most treads on treadmills are wide and enable a user to walk along the tread at various locations with respect to the width (i.e., at a central location, at a left lateral location, at a right lateral location, etc.). In the case of typical exercise treadmills, wide treads are fine as a treadmill user's attention is typically directed forward during use and the user naturally centers on the tread width. In fact, in at least some cases where users run on a mill, a wide tread may be necessary for users to avoid inadvertently stepping off the tread during activities. However, in the case of a treadmill workstation, it has been recognized that where a table top is relatively large and a tread width is relatively wide, users have a tendency to spread out materials across the top surface and to move around to different locations with respect to the tread width. For instance, where a document is located adjacent a left lateral edge of a top member, a user on a wide tread may move over to the left side of the tread when reaching for the document. Here, the relatively wide tread gives the user the sense that moving toward the left edge of the tread is OK and even encouraged. When moving toward a tread edge users can misjudge their location on the tread and have been known to inadvertently step off the tread at times.
Eighth, most treadmills have relatively high maximum speed limits that encourage users to run or jog on the tread during use. Where a user jogs or runs, the user cannot typically concentrate on a display screen or use an input device like a keyboard very well. In addition, jogging and other aerobic exercise is not consistent with NEAT exercise principles.
Ninth, when a station user places a keyboard, papers, etc., on the top surface of a treadmill table top, it has been observed that there is a tendency to place those materials adjacent or even hanging off a front edge of the top member. Here, in the event that a station user needs to grasp the table edge to maintain balance, loose papers and/or a loose keyboard or the like may impede a good grip on the table edge and therefore the top member can often be rendered ineffectual as a stabilizing structure.
Thus, what is needed is a sturdy treadmill/table configuration that includes easily accessible treadmill control buttons, an easily accessible hand rail that does not interfere with access to a keyboard, optionally accessible treadmill output components and that includes a work surface that is sized to facilitate many different types of occupational activities without being too large so that a user cannot easily reach materials supported there by. In addition, it would be advantageous if a treadmill/workstation where transformable so that the station could be used with a chair instead of with a tread assembly at times.